


Spun as the Thread of Your Destiny

by mediumrawr



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dark, F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediumrawr/pseuds/mediumrawr
Summary: Five very short stories about different Inquisitors and different women who loved them.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Cassandra Pentaghast, Female Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast, Female Inquisitor/Leliana (Dragon Age), Leliana/Female Trevelyan (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 6





	1. Adaar/Cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius.
> 
> This is a lot about things I wanted Inquisition to be able to explore, that it couldn't explore. Oh well. Here goes:

“ _Farce,_ ” Adaar repeated. She flinched, then retreated. Wrongfooted, Cassandra pursued her.

She caught up to Adaar hunched over her private desk. Her fingers ran over a ragged, thin book, too cheap and too stained to be from Skyhold’s library. “I’ve heard that word. I heard it in chantries and I heard it from Vashoth. _Farce_. For a monster to have faith.”

From next to her, Cassandra could see it was the Canticle of Benedictions.

“For you, faith came easy, a path that always had a next step. A Chanter in Ansburg pressed this into my hands, said, ‘Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.’ I didn’t understand all of it. I made Shokrakar help me with my letters, until I’d read it and read it and she wouldn’t hear it again.”

Cassandra fumbled. “Inquisitor – Herah, I – ”

Adaar’s hand clasped around her arm, tight enough to sting. “This book says beauty is to be of service. Beauty is to love who suffers. And you all _forgot_. And I am…” She trailed off. Her hand loosened. Cassandra thought there might be a tear wavering in her eye. “The Maker’s bride set me to reminding you. And you don’t believe me.”

She retreated again, this time to the balcony, clutching her ragged talisman. Cassandra knew she ought to let Adaar have her space, but she could not leave a matter hanging. Instead, she pursued.

“I wish to be free of your judgment, Seeker.”

“Herah. I am – you know about me, that this is what I will never be good at. If you let me stand at your side, I will hurt you like this again, because I – I am not able to learn how to not. But I do stand at your side, I promise, even if…”

Adaar took her hand.


	2. Trevelyan (Noble) / Leliana

“You speak like you really believe.”

“Of course I believe,” said Evelyn, sitting alone on the golden, cushioned throne that Leliana herself and Cassandra and Josephine had given her. Leliana remembered how Evelyn had affected a brief hesitation about the lavish gift before accepting, a half-moment too brief to avoid Leliana’s suspicion. Evelyn flashed her teeth. “Andraste appeared to me as she appeared to Drakon, and commanded me to redeem – ”

“You’ve told the story,” Leliana interrupted.

“So it’s you who lacks faith,” said Evelyn.

She had agonized over that, certainly. Was it selfish of her to have doubts? The Maker had blessed her with visions, once. Could she permit no one else to have His favor? And in this time, with her worshippers scattered and in fear, would Andraste not bless them with another Drakon?

“It’s just… the soldiers saw you with Andraste in the rift, but now we know that was Justinia, and then – ”

“Come here, Sister Leliana.”

Almost despite herself, Leliana approached the throne.

“Whether Andraste appeared herself doesn’t matter.”

Leliana frowned. Hadn’t Evelyn said it was Andraste herself, until it was known to be otherwise?

“Imagine that I am not what I say I am.” Evelyn reached up from the throne, a gesture of saintly benevolence, and placed her hand on Leliana’s cheek. “That I am an ambitious lordling, a liar so skilled to have fooled you for months. That I walked out of the Fade and saw an opportunity to rise above my station. How?”

Leliana trembled. “By leading the Inquisition—”

Evelyn’s thumb curled around Leliana’s chin and touched her lower lip. Her voice was soft but certain – a tone that Leliana had heard many times before, from Evelyn, but also from Justinia and Sereda and Marjolaine. “By leading the Inquisition to unite Thedas against Corypheus, to overcome the corruption of the Chantry, to appoint a new, faithful Divine, an obedient servant of the Maker, and with her to cleanse the corrupt, faithless institutions that oppose me.”

“I – yes.”

“Imagine that all of that is so. Is it not your duty to the Maker to ride that lie as far as you can? To serve that cause, to serve Him by being my dutiful left hand?”

Leliana nodded. She tired of the lies often, but she knew it was so. She knew the value of a lie that could not be refuted. And she caught the flash of ambition in Evelyn’s eyes and knew what it meant. She went to one knee before the Inquisitor. “I apologize, my lady, I – ”

But Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. She leaned forward so that she now loomed over her spymaster. “But it is not so. Your faith is rewarded. Andraste commands me, and set you at my side to serve this holy mission. And we don’t need to speak anymore to the contrary. Yes?”

Leliana blinked. She wished to believe, and anyway she saw now that doubting was beside the point. It was either true or they would make it true, together. “Yes, Your Worship.”

The Inquisitor held out the arm that had cupped Leliana’s cheek. “Will you kiss my hand and show your faith, Sister Leliana?”

And, of course, Leliana did.


End file.
